Stranger
by rachelstarberry38
Summary: "You don't even know her, Finn; she could be really dangerous or scary. You don't know why she was by herself in that alley that night or why she won't even tell you her last name. You don't know where she's from or why she's not worried about her family wondering where she is when she's been staying with you for a week." AU Finchel with some Quick, Klaine, and Fintana.


**Chapter 1**

I wasn't in the greatest mood as I walked home that cold Friday night. I had just gotten in a fight with my ex-wife and I definitely didn't have the attitude to deal with all of the gangs wandering the streets that night. New York City was full of angry kids looking for a fight, not even caring if they got jailed for it. I wasn't planning on staying at her house for so long that night so I walked because it was only a mile away and it had been fairly nice weather earlier in the evening. At this point in the night it was pitch black in the sky, not that I could really tell through all of the street and house lights. Since the fight I got into with Quinn, my ex-wife, I hadn't felt very great. Every time we fought it took away a lot of my self-esteem and probably some of hers as well. This time it was about how I never finish anything on time and how she drank too much. We both had a lot of problems that led to the divorce a year earlier. Quinn and I had only been married four years but it felt like a lifetime to me, especially since we married right out of college. She had a new boyfriend who I actually liked to talk to and hang out with which really pissed her off. I never seemed to have a serious girlfriend after we split up but I had been on a few dates.

The alley I was walking through as a shortcut to get home was shockingly quiet for that time of night; it was barely past midnight. I was almost home when I heard a quiet scream come from a few yards away. The voice sounded like a woman's so of course I assumed she was being assaulted or something like that as it is pretty common for things like that to happen in New York City. I walked over to where I thought I heard the scream and sure enough found a young woman about my age or maybe younger crawled up in a ball with her head in her knees. I don't know how I could tell how old she was by this, she actually looked very small, but I could just sense it just like I sensed that something really bad had happened to her. I didn't know at first if I was supposed to say anything but I did. "Excuse, miss, are you alright?"

The woman looked up at me and my stomach dropped immediately. There were tears streaming down her cheeks quickly but they were black from her mascara rather than clear. Her hair was full of knots and snarls but I could tell that before she began crying her hair had been pinned up and curled. She looked like she had been at a formal occasion because her lips were covered partly with a bright red lipstick and she was wearing tall black heels and a fancy dress, too short to be wearing at that time of year. She shook her head slowly and that was enough for me to reach my hand out and help her stand up. She was shaking uncontrollably and I didn't know how to stop her so I just took off my jacket and wrapped it around her, hoping she was just shaking from the cold. "Do you want me to call anyone for you?" I asked. She shook her head again. "Can I bring you home?" I couldn't just leave her there; it didn't seem right. She didn't reply, just sighed. "How about I take you back to my place tonight?"

She nodded a little because she probably just didn't want to stay outside all night and had no way of getting home. Or maybe she didn't have a nice place to live. Clearly even if she did, she didn't want to go home. I decided it wouldn't hurt to let her stay at my place for the night since she seemed harmless and I could tell she needed the help. "Come on, my apartment is just down the street," I smiled warmly at her, hoping she would feel like she could talk to me if she wanted to. I stayed very close to her as we walked back to my apartment building together. To me, she seemed like an injured animal. I was scared I could hurt her or something like that if I got too close or said too much.

We reached my building and I waved to the doorman before taking her to the elevator and pressing the button for level three. Once we got to my floor, I helped her to my room. "You can sit down if you want, sorry it's kind of a mess, I don't get a lot of company." She looked around for a few minutes but very slowly. "If you want you can shower and borrow some clothes. I think I might have some stuff that will fit you in the guest room; I have a friend who's a girl that stays here sometimes." I noticed that she was looking at my wedding picture that hung on the wall and I was wondering if she thought I was still married.

I was carrying Quinn bridal style in the picture and we were both smiling widely, but I didn't look as happy in the picture as I felt that day. "That's my ex-wife," I said, just to make it clear that there was no one else living in the apartment. I didn't want her to think that I had a wife that would go crazy and try to kill her when she got home. "Her name is Quinn."

She looked at me funny for a moment before shrugging a little and looking at more pictures. It wasn't until I turned all of the lights on that I saw how beautiful she really was. She had long brunette hair with bangs and big, beautiful, chocolate brown eyes. She was at least a foot shorter than me, about 5'3" maybe. I looked down and noticed that she had bare legs and arms and the dress she was wearing barely covered her at all. She had to have been at a party or some place that required people to dress that racy. "Why were you by yourself in the alley like that?" I asked.

She flinched so I decided to not bring it up. "My name is Finn, Finn Hudson. If you need anything just yell my name, I probably won't get a lot of sleep anyways."

"I'm Rachel," she said quietly. It was almost too quiet for me to hear but as soon as she realized how quiet she was, she corrected herself in a more confident voice. "My name is Rachel."

"Nice to meet you," I smiled a little at her. She seemed nice enough. "If you can't sleep than you should come get me and we can watch a movie or something. I have a huge selection of movies that I like and then I have a bunch of movies that Quinn left here like The Notebook and some movie about remembering a walk with Mindy Mower."

"You mean Mandy Moore? A Walk to Remember?" She asked as if it were obvious. I nodded. I was glad that I was finally able to get some words out of her.

"Yeah she had that, too," I nodded. "So just let me know and we can watch something, I'm fine with whatever. I actually don't have to work tomorrow because I'm a teacher so we have weekends off. We can stay up really late and watch all the movies in the world," I grinned a little, hoping to get a laugh out of her. No such luck.

"I like movies," she shrugged. "I like books better though."

"No kidding?" I chuckled lightly. I'd never met anyone who liked to read more than they liked to watch movies. At least she was telling me a little about herself. "I think I might have a few books in that cabinet over there."

She nodded a little. "I see," she noticed a book that was laying on the floor near where I told her they were and she picked it up, starting to read the book.

"If you want you can go look and see if there's anything you want to wear in there and you can shower, there's a bathroom in there, too. Just make yourself at home and I'm gonna go brush my teeth and stuff," I opened the door to the guest room and then went into my own room to get ready for bed. After brushing my teeth and changing, I sat down on my bed to check my email on my laptop. My step-brother usually emailed me every Friday night.

 _Finn,_

 _Hey, I just thought I'd email you to check in and see how you're doing this week. I talked to Quinn and she's considering donating the egg for Blaine and me, but we'll only go through with her if you're okay with it. I know you might not be very happy with our decision after everything that happened with her last year. I thought it would be nice to at least have your blessing._

 _Blaine wanted me to say hi for him. He says he wants you to come visit us sometime in Brooklyn. I know how horrible traffic is to try and get here and I know you're really busy with work and all of the drama with Quinn but it would be really great to see you. We miss you very much. How is work going by the way? I know the last time we talked you said it was going really well and you were really happy there._

 _Carole called yesterday. She wanted me to tell you that. Why can't you just give her a few minutes to apologize? You haven't even given her a chance to explain. You'll never know what really happened until you talk to her. Just give her a call and listen to her side of the story. The whole thing could really be Frannie Fabray's fault. In fact, it probably is._

 _Talk to you soon._

 _Kurt_

I slammed my laptop shut and rolled my eyes, walking back out into the living room. I tried to hide my anger from Rachel because it didn't seem fair to worry her with my problems when she clearly had enough of her own. "How are you doing?" I asked before I noticed what she was wearing. She had put on a t-shirt my friend Santana had left in the drawer with a pair of shorts. The shirt was from college three years earlier. It was an NYU cheer shirt from the clinic Santana ran with Quinn every year. I sighed and then smiled a little. "That shirt is adorable on you," I chuckled a little and sat down next to her.

"Thanks," she smiled weakly but I could tell she was still a little uncomfortable.

"Anything else I can get you?" I asked. She shook her head. "Do you wanna talk or something? You looked pretty traumatized when I found you, did something happen?"

She looked down. I sighed. "What happened?" She wasn't going to answer me. I could just tell that she was too nervous to talk. "You don't have to tell me; I'm just kinda confused…"

"Stop it with the questions please," she snapped. "I can take a taxi home if you don't want me here, this isn't a charity. I don't need help from anyone, much less someone who doesn't want to give it."

"Whoa calm down," I said. "I'm just worried about you, you seem terrified and I'm not just gonna let you wander all by yourself on the street at night. I don't know what happened to you but I'm here to help and if you need anything. I wouldn't have helped you if I didn't want to. I'm sorry, but I'm in a bad mood tonight. I just want to know what happened to you to make you so jumpy."

She looked away from me. "Nothing, I'm fine." She stood up and walked into the guest room. I decided to just leave her alone and go to bed so I went to my own room. I laid down in my bed, thinking about all of the weird things that had happened that night. Just when I was about to lean over to shut off my lamp, I heard my phone ringing on my nightstand. I rolled my eyes and turned my lamp back on, answering my phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, can I stay there tonight? I wasn't planning on it but I was working late and you know how Cohen-Chang gets when I wake her up."

"Maybe if you were paying rent to live there she wouldn't care so much," I said, not bothering to open my eyes.

I could basically hear her rolling her eyes at me through the phone. "So can I come over or not?"

"Not." I replied, remembering Rachel.

"You got another girl sleeping over there, Hudson?" She asked, clearly joking. After I didn't reply, she said, "Oh, I see. You're embarrassed. Finn, it's been like a year since the divorce. Q's got a boyfriend. What makes you think she'll care if you get a girlfriend?"

"It's not that I think she'll care, it's just that I don't want her to go totally crazy and try to murder my girlfriend, if I ever get one," I explained. It sounded psycho to anyone who didn't know Quinn. Lucky for me, Santana knew her well.

She sounded shocked when she began to speak again. " _If_ you ever get one? You're only 25 years old, Hudson. That's too young to be giving up on women for the rest of your life. You want me to set you up? I've got tons of hot friends at work. You remember Brittany? She's single."

"Yeah, no offence, Santana, but I don't want to date one of your co-workers. They're all just stupid sluts looking for money. Except for you, of course. And I don't have any money to give them. That's kind of my problem. Girls like that are usually only impressed with lawyers and doctors and millionaires. I'm a high school teacher." Deciding that she would never shut up and let me sleep, I sat up and turned on the main light in my room. "You're the only girl in that place that cares more about love than cash. It's really too bad you're a lesbian."

"Yeah I'm a lesbian, doesn't mean I can't like guys, too. Don't you remember that one time in Vegas?" She asked and I could tell she was smirking while we talked about it.

Santana was probably my best friend. Actually, Santana was probably my only friend. Ever since Kurt and I had a falling out and Blaine, his husband, took his side, I didn't have a lot of people to hang out with. My mom and I got in a big fight after the divorce and that cut me off from my whole family. Most of my friends from high school and college had moved on to bigger things outside of the city. Santana and I had been best friends since we were little kids. We grew up down the street from each other in Montclair, New Jersey. I was actually born in a small town in Ohio but after my dad died, my mom decided to move me closer to family. We knew a lot of people in New York so it was easy to adjust after the move. When I was younger, all of my friends had a tough sounding Jersey accent. I picked it up a little bit but my mom still spoke like she was from the Midwest so I had a confusing Midwestern Jersey accent mixed with some sort of New Yorker thing. Once I moved to New York for college, I dropped the accent. Santana was born in Montclair. Her whole family lived in that same neighborhood. Next to me was her grandmother, Alma, and on the next street was her cousin, Megan, with that whole half of the Lopez family. We didn't really get to know each other until we were getting on the bus for our first day of kindergarten and we didn't have anyone to sit with. She grabbed me by my shirt collar while we were waiting at the bus stop and told me I had to sit with her or she'd look stupid for having no friends. From then on, we always sat together. She told me everything on those bus rides from getting a puppy to her first big crush. I told her when I was sad about my dad and when I was absolutely in love with Quinn Fabray. Santana and I even went to the same college. That's when we met Quinn. Quinn and Santana were on the same cheerleading team at NYU and we all became friends at a party sophomore year. Quinn was wasted and some guy was gonna try to take advantage of her so I took her home and we started dating. We stayed together the rest of college and got married right after graduation.

Santana always knew Quinn and I wouldn't work out. It wasn't that we didn't have anything in common or we weren't in love or we didn't have the same life goals. In fact, we actually were so alike it was scary. We loved all of the same stuff and were deeply in love with each other. We both wanted to get married and have two or three kids. As long as we stayed away from talking about politics, we never fought until we got married. I think Santana just knew that Quinn's drinking in college was not just a phase. She had serious mental health problems that she never dealt with until after the wedding. Unfortunately, she started to drink even more to try and forget about it which just caused more fights between the two of us.

I didn't leave my apartment for anything other than work for months after the divorce. It was embarrassing. One weekend, Santana showed up at my apartment out of nowhere and started packing a suitcase for me. When I asked her where we were going, she said it was a surprise. I didn't figure it out until we got to Las Vegas. We spent the entire weekend in bars and casinos and basically doing nothing productive. Then one night we were walking down the Las Vegas strip and bought some ice cream cones before standing in front of the Fountains of Bellagio. We actually started talking for real for the first time since the divorce. "Hey, Finn, why are you so hung up on the divorce? It's not like you didn't see it coming. And you could easily find another girl just as awesome as Quinn Fabray."

"It's not that I'm worried I won't find someone else. I know I will. It's just…I'm only 24. I shouldn't be getting divorced. I shouldn't have even gotten married. I don't know how to move on from this. I haven't been on a date with anyone other than Quinn in five years," I said while eating my ice cream and looking at the fountains. The show was supposed to start in a few minutes.

Santana rolled her eyes, turning to face me. "After dating someone like Quinn Fabray, it should be easy to date anyone else. She's like the most controlling, crazy, needy girlfriend ever."

"Can I ask you something?" I looked back at her.

"Sure."

"Why is it always so easy for you to move on after a bad breakup? After you broke up with Matt in high school, I saw you the next day at school and you were completely fine, back to your crazy self. How do you always stay so calm?" I asked after finishing my ice cream cone.

"The best way not to get your heart broken is to pretend you don't have one." She answered so simply, like it was the only thing in the world that made sense. Then suddenly the fountains burst into the air and began an amazing show. I had never seen anything like it.

Santana and I never felt any romantic chemistry between us. It was always friendship. But there's something about the Fountains of Bellagio that make you want to make out with the person standing next to you. So that's exactly what happened that night when we got back to our hotel room. We never talked about it again but it was something that I knew was always on her mind. And it was always on mine as well. Not because it was extraordinarily amazing or anything, it was just different.

In the midst of the memory, I had completely forgotten I was still on the phone with Santana. "Of course I remember, Santana," I mumbled quietly.

We stayed silent for a few more moments before either of us began to speak. "Well if you have company I think I'll just crash at Britt's."

"No, its fine, you can come over here. I'll sleep on the couch."

"You don't have to. Who's over there anyways?" She sounded confused. I had to admit, it didn't really look good that I had someone sleeping over but I didn't have a girlfriend. But if it was my girlfriend or even just a random hook up, wouldn't she be in my bed with me?

I thought carefully about what I was going to say before replying. "When I was walking back from Quinn's, I took that shortcut through the alley and I found this girl sitting there shaking. She looked terrified so I took her back to my apartment and gave her some warm clothes. She's sleeping in the guest bed. I can't figure out what happened to her but she was wearing party clothes and tall heals but she was a mess."

"Well we do live in New York…what could have happened to a dressed up young girl walking through a quiet alley late at night?" She asked, clearly trying to suggest something. "She could have gotten mugged or raped or anything like that. You never know. Do you know where she was coming from?"

"No, she wouldn't tell me anything," I shrugged.

She was silent for a minute or so before very quietly replying, "I'll be there in five minutes."

 **So here's the first chapter of my new story. I wrote the first part of this a long time ago and just came back to it a few days ago and decided to continue with it. Sorry the first chapter lacks any cute Finchel moments but I was trying to explain Finn and Santana's relationship but also talk about Finn and Quinn's and try to foreshadow a little bit about Finn and his mom. Anyways, the next chapter will hopefully have a lot more Rachel. Thanks for reading!**


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